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Elliana
Elliana is a DLC character in Rivals of Aether. She drives a large mech that wields many projectiles. She is categorized as an aerial zoner. Her main mechanic is the heat bar. Certain moves add heat and other moves reduce heat. If the bar is filled completely, she enters the overheated state that changes her attacks and lasts for a few seconds. The heat bar is visible over her head and on the damage display at the bottom of the screen. Attributes Elliana is a tricky character that requires strategic thinking and resource management. Many of her attacks are vastly different than that of the other characters. For example, her Up Special attack should not be used to recover often since it is laggy and very punishable. Additionally, Elliana has the hover mechanic instead of a double jump, so she cannot easily escape certain combos and recovers differently than every other character. However, a good Elliana player can use her flexible moveset to trap opponents and secure fast kills. Elliana's heat gauge is the most important part of her gameplay to master. It both helps and hurts her, so knowing when to overheat and when to cool off is essential to playing Elliana. Players should aim to build up heat during combos and overheat at the end of combos for a Strong Attack finisher. If Elliana overheats at the wrong time, Strong Attacks or Up Special must be used to cool down as fast as possible. Elliana's combo game is very unique. Instead of rushing down opponents with fast moves, Elliana relies on Side Special missiles and the Down Special mine. If Elliana can explode the mine on opponents using the missiles, she has time to follow up with almost any attack. Since the missiles can be guided, they cover most of the opponent's DI options. Sticking a mine on the opponent is extremely important for combos and finishers and is the optimal move to use after parrying an opponent. While Specials are the most important part of combos, aerials must be used in between specials to rack up damage and move the opponent toward the blastzones. Back Aerial is a good tool for knocking opponents far away and can lead directly into missiles. Up Aerial can juggle opponents and kill off the top. Forward Aerial and Down Aerial can both possibly combo into a grounded move such as Jab. Neutral Aerial hits on both sides of Elliana, so it can cover many of the opponents options if spaced correctly. If Elliana has enough time to set up a combo, opponents will have a difficult time escaping it. When on the ground, Elliana's best move is usually Jab, since it is the fastest and safest move. It has decent knockback and enough speed to be used in combos after wavelanding or wavedashing. Even though Elliana's Down Tilt is also very fast, it is less useful as it has fewer follow ups. Forward Tilt can be used to catch rolls or edge guard since its hitbox lasts for a very long time. However, whiffing Forward Tilt leaves Elliana open to a punish. Elliana's Up Tilt is her most laggy and situational tilt. It can only reliably be used if the opponent is caught in a mine explosion or steam. If Up Tilt is whiffed, the opponent has a lot of time to set up a punish. Overall, Elliana's ground game is weaker than most characters. Despite all of Elliana's positive attributes, she has many negative ones that make her a difficult character to play. Her large hurtbox and weight let opponents easily combo her. Since Elliana's moves are generally laggy and she doesn't have a double jump, escaping combos is extremely difficult. Also, Elliana has few options to punish opponents after a parry. Her Strong Attacks only have powerful knockback if she is overheated, so she cannot simply charge a Strong Attack after a parry like most other characters. Elliana also has a below average recovery as her Up Special has a lot of endlag and is not recharged when being hit. She must rely on Down Strong and the hover ability to safely recover. Strengths * Has many complicated projectiles to disrupt the opponent ** Her guided missiles move quickly and can reach almost anywhere on any stage. * Her mines can be detonated by the missiles or the rocket fist and lead to many possible follow ups. * Strong Attacks can be used both on the ground and in the air * Flying - Instead of having a double jump, she can hold the jump button to fly for a short period of time. This can help in recovery / combos. * Can release heat in the form of steam clouds that multihit opponents ** These clouds can be blown around with moves ** Clouds can greatly restrict the opponent's movement * By combining Strong attacks, Neutral Special, Up Special, and Flying, she can recover from almost anywhere * Fast air speed Weaknesses * Overheating - If Elliana's heat bar is filled, she will be unable to fly and unable to use Neutral, Side, and Down Special. She does not lose access to Up Special however. ** The overheat bar does not cool down while Elliana is being comboed. * Many of her attacks have large amounts of end lag (Up Tilt, F Tilt, Dash Attack, Neutral Special) * Flying accelerates slowly, so she cannot use it to escape most combos * Strong Attacks only have knockback when overheated and are slightly laggy * Up Special is very punishable and not very useful for recoverying * Her only spike is Overheated Down Strong, which is hard to connect unless used after a mine explosion. * Steam can be blown around by opponents' attacks, so it is not an effective wall * Is a heavyweight with a large hurtbox, so she can be comboed very easily * Missiles are destroyed by opponents attacks. ** Some of the most problematic attacks for Elliana's missiles are Ranno's needles, Ranno's bubble, Etalus' ice spikes, etc. ** Clairen's force field and Kragg's rock are hard counters to Elliana's missiles as they completely block them instead of trading. Techniques * Up Special Heat Reset - Using Up Special reduces Elliana's heat bar to zero. Since Up Special can be canceled with an air dodge after a few frames, Elliana can quickly eliminate heat on stages with high platforms by using Up Special and wavelanding onto the platforms (Air Armada, Fire Capitol, etc.) On stages without high platforms, this technique is not useful. * Use Down Air while jumping to gain a lot of height. This can be difficult to do on certain control schemes. * Try to position the Steam so that Up Tilt throws opponents into it for longer combos * Strong Attack Hover - Elliana can hover while charging Strong Attacks. This lets her easily position them to hit opponents. If Elliana overheats while charging, the overheated version will be performed. * Recovery Combos - ** Elliana regains her airdodge after using Up Special, so consuming an airdodge before Up Special is fine. ** Use an extended aerial after a wall jump to gain extra height ** Use Down or Side Strong attacks to get rid of heat. This will allow Elliana to hover for longer, which is her best recovery option. Combos * Parry > Shorthop > Down Special > Back Aerial * Attach mine to opponents > Forward Special > Neutral Special (You need to predict their DI!) * Attach mine to opponents > Back Aerial > Forward Special > Overheated Down Strong * First few hits of Forward Air > Jab Gameplay In-Game Info: "Elliana builds up heat when hovering or using specials. If she overheats, she loses access to both of them. Elliana's strong attacks fire steam and can be used in the air. While overheated, they fire explosions instead. Elliana's Up Special ejects her from the ship, putting her in a dangerous position until she touches the ground." Elemental Powers: Moveset Costumes * Arcade Elliana Background Story Elliana wanted to fly, so she went to an Air Armada recruitment center. However, as she was a snake, she was not accepted. Even though she created a flying machine, the Air Armada would not accept her. Elliana eventually found Ayala, a rabbit who knew more about steam machines. The two of them created a mech. Elliana added weapons to the mech and set out to destroy the Air Armada. Trivia * She is the thirteenth character to be announced and represents the element steam / wind. * The name 'Elliana' comes from the pixel artist of Rivals, Ellian. * Elliana has a command grab * She is the second character to be able to use Strong Attacks in the air, the first being Wrastor. ** She is the first character who can use Strong Attacks on the ground and in the air, the second being Shovel Knight with Dynamo Mail equipped. * The idea of a character in a mech has been mentioned many times before. In one reddit thread, in response to the question, "What ideas do you have for the next Rival?", Dan Fornace replied, "Steampunk Mech thing with an overheat bar like Rumble from League of Legendsssss." * The name 'Elliana' had been mentioned multiple times by the developers before the reveal. In one tweet, Dan Fornace said, "well maybe they won't love Elliana. that one is still on the fence." * Despite not being playable in Abyss Mode, Elliana still has an abyss color in the game's files. * When Elliana is frozen by Etalus' Down Special, she loses heat extremely quickly * Arcade Elliana features a special taunt in which she plays the game "Snake" on a small screen. * Her eject move seems to be inspired by Bowser Jr's Up Special from the Super Smash Brothers series. Both her Side Special and Down Special seem to be inspired by Snake's respective moves. * Elliana's mech is named "YB-33", as a reference to Youngblood of the development team. Category:Characters Category:Downloadable Content